An ongoing analysis of southwest border violence issues by an experienced intelligence professional.

I am a consultant and analyst with eight years of military law enforcement experience, six years of analytical experience covering Latin America, and over seven years of analytical experience covering Mexican TCOs and border violence issues. This blog is designed to inform readers about current border violence issues and provide analysis on those issues, as well as detailed focus on specific border topics. By applying my knowledge and experience through this blog, I hope to separate the wheat from the chaff...that is, dispel rumors propagated by sensationalist media reporting, explain in layman's terms what is going on with Mexican TCOs, and most importantly, WHY violence is happening along the US-Mexico border.

With over a dozen years of combined experience in military law enforcement, force protection analysis, and writing a variety of professional products for the US Air Force, state government in California, and the general public, Ms. Longmire has the expertise to create a superior product for you or your agency to further your understanding of Mexico’s drug war. Longmire Consulting is dedicated to being on the cusp of the latest developments in Mexico in order to bring you the best possible analysis of threats posed by the drug violence south of the border.

September 2011

September 27, 2011

Earlier today, I had the distinct pleasure of being interviewed by NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya for her Minneapolis-based radio show! We talked about my book, the New York Times op-ed I wrote on legalization, and the impact of the drug war in general.

If you'd like to listen to the audio clip (it's about 10 minutes long), here it is:

September 24, 2011

I've really been looking forward to reading this relatively short and new contribution to the growing body of published work on the drug war. Many of my colleagues have read it and said it was great, so my expectations going into it were pretty high...just so you know.

Gibler starts the book off a la Saving Private Ryan, with lots of back-to-back stories of gruesome narco deaths and explanations about the silences that follow them. I particularly like how he details the story of a photographer who snapped shots of a man in police, then Navy, custody one day, only to be taking photos of his body on the side of the road the next day.

But then the first chapter started to meander, and I picked up on a couple of things that bugged me. First, Gibler touches upon how the illegality of drugs fuels the violence - true enough. He says, "Legalization would put the traffickers as they exist today out of business." However, he then spends several pages describing how cartels have branched out into kidnapping, extortion, oil theft, etc., which somewhat contradicts his stance on legalization. He even acknowledges that statistics regarding the estimated values of cartel drug profits are only guesses, and sometimes wild ones, so it's tough to see how he reconciles these things.

I was happy that he touched upon the extent of cartel money laundering and how much money gets injected into the Mexican economy by the drug trade. However, Gibler drops a bomb here; he quoted a reporter from London's The Observer who said, "Drug money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis." The reporter got this info from a man at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and Gibler ticks off some theoretical statistics about how this is possible. But he stops the discussion after only a couple of paragraphs. I mean, if true, this is huge news! Why would he not lend more space towards expanding on something that explosive?

In his discussion about cartels' expansion into other trades, I was disturbed that Gibler used the term "human trafficking" instead of "human smuggling." I'm used to amateurs getting the two confused and using the terms interchangeably, but I would never expect someone with Gibler's experience to make this error. As a reminder, human trafficking is when people are involuntarily taken from one country to another to work as sex slaves or essentially indentured servants. Human smuggling is when people voluntarily pay someone to get them to, then safely across, a border into another country. Mexican cartels, contrary to the verbiage Gibler uses, are involved in human smuggling, and to varying extents of involvement depending on the cartel.

All that being said, Gibler does a fabulous job of explaining how the cartels operate with such impunity. He also beautifully illustrates the myth the Mexican government keeps trying to feed its people like castor oil: that almost everyone killed in the drug war must have been involved or deserved it somehow. I love this passage:

"And this is what they tell us: if you are found dead, shot through the face, wrapped in a soiled blanket, and left on some desolate roadside, then you are somehow to blame. You must have been into something bad to end up like that. Surely you were a drug dealer, a drug trafficker, or an official on the take. The very fact of your execution is the judgment against you, the determination of your guilt."

Still, To Die in Mexico is an uneven read for me. Gibler provides some good background information on the drug war that's invaluable for context. But these sections are interspersed with politically charged statements and opinions that could be a turn-off for many readers. For example, he supports Michelle Alexander's statement, "Reagan's drug war consolidated the racist underpinnings of prohibition into a new racial caste system." Later, he writes, "Thirty years later mass incarceration through drug laws has become the new Jim Crow caste system of racial discrimination in the United States." I understand what he means, but I totally disagree with his approach; the last time I checked, illegal drug use in the US was still voluntary, and heroin will kill a black man as easily as a white man. He provides no compelling evidence that the US government is willfully using prohibition as a means of "social control" (he brings up that term) to propagate racism, although that's what he implies. Hey, I just wanted to learn more about Mexico's drug war from a different perspective, not get hammered with a social agenda!

The unevenness continues with a solid mention of La Santa Muerte and a conversation with renowned anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz. But then Gibler casually throws in that Los Zetas studied counterinsurgency strategies in the US and adopted al-Qa'ida's tactics of recording beheadings and posting them on YouTube. First, the US Army has run all the names of known Zetas through their student databases, and there have been no matches; the "fact" that Zetas trained at Ft Bragg or Ft Benning is only a (false) rumor. Also, there has never been any confirmation that Los Zetas are intentionally imitating al-Qa'ida's techniques; this has always been pure speculation, but Gibler presents both as facts. This bugs me.

Fortunately, the second chapter flows into a familiar rhythm of solid journalistic narrative. I enjoyed reading about his visits with Mexican journalists and ride-alongs with photographers to various crime scenes. Gibler is able to give the reader an "I was there" feeling without actually having to personally live through the horror like he did. But even in the midst of this great flow, the reader can find errors of fact that lead Gibler to make some bad conclusions. For example, he mentions the expansive arrests of dozens mayors, police and other officials that President Felipe Calderon initiated in May 2009. Gibler writes every single person arrested belonged to the PRD, one of the opposition parties to Calderon's own PAN. He then says the arrests took place six weeks before the Mexican mid-term elections, implying the arrests were a political ploy by Calderon. The problem is that the people arrested came from all different political parties: the PRI, the PRD, and Calderon's PAN (as reported by Reuters, the Associated Press, etc.)

The narratives in the third chapter are pretty thrilling, especially one of a confrontation between journalists and cartel members in Reynosa. Much of the rest of the book focuses repeatedly on two main themes: the lives of and threats to journalists working in Mexico, and the general agreement by Mexican citizens that the cartels run the show across the country. Over and over, the reporters Gibler talks to say the same thing: they can't report the war accurately, and there are unspoken rules to follow and lines not to cross if they want to stay alive. Gibler delves into Ciudad Juarez and the hundreds of maquiladoras on the city's outskirts in the fourth chapter, and how it all interconnects in the drug war.

Unfortunately, as Gibler wraps up the book in the final chapter, he goes political again. It's one thing to propose solutions to decreasing the violence and making the situation more manageable. But Gibler aggressivly stands on his soapbox to say "the drug war is a proxy for racism, militarization, social control, and access to the truckloads of cash that illegality makes possible." These are strong statements, and he has every right to say them. I disagree with him on several counts, which makes these sections so difficult to read, but there are many people out there who'd tell Gibler he was preaching to the choir.

All in all, for me, To Die in Mexico was a mixed bag. I loved the narratives and all the stories of people he interviewed. He's a good writer, and has a knack for bringing to life these conversations and situations for the reader. However, I was really bothered by the factual inaccuracies in several places, and those were just the ones I caught, having written my own book on this subject. This, of course, leads me to wonder what else in the book I'm accepting as face value that might not be accurate because I'm not personally familiar with the incident or topic. I also didn't like that he injected so much political vitriol in the first chapter; I was honestly tempted to just stop reading right there. The only thing that kept me going was knowing there was some great writing on the other side of that. Gibler might have been better served by saving all of it for the end so that readers have a chance to fully ingest all the information he provides before getting an earful of his opinion, and potentially getting turned off by it. I'd say, 3 1/2 out of 5 stars for being solidly written, but diverging too many times into too many directions, several factual inaccuracies, and breaking up good narrative with political invective at the wrong moments.

September 15, 2011

Here is an excerpt from Dudley Althaus' article in The Houston Chronicle:

"Placards left with the tortured bodies of two people hanging from a Nuevo Laredo overpass warn that the same fate awaits social media devotees who keep information flowing by text, Twitter, blogs and other means as gangsters muzzle the news media in much of Mexico. 'This is going to happen to all the internet busybodies,' said one of the notes signed with a Z, presumably for the Zetas gang that controls Nuevo Laredo. 'Listen up, I'm on to you'... The messages found in Nuevo Laredo on Tuesday, with the bodies of a man and a woman in their 20s, directly threatened two popular blogs that specialize in reporting gang-related violence." Link to Full Article

"More than 48 hours after two mangled bodies appeared hanging by ropes from a pedestrian bridge in a Mexican border city, authorities had yet to identify the victims... The woman was hogtied and disemboweled. Attackers left her topless, dangling by her feet and hands from a bridge in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. A bloodied man next to her was hanging by his hands, his right shoulder severed so deeply the bone was visible.Posters found with the bodies contained messages mentioning two blogs and threatening users of social media, demanding they stop reporting drug-related crimes in the city, located across the border from Laredo, Texas. Mexico's notoriously ruthless drug gangs regularly hang victims from bridges and highway overpasses. And bloggers who specialize in sharing news about trafficking have been threatened in the past. But this could be the first time users of such social networks have been targeted... CNN tried unsuccessfully to get information about the grisly slayings at the local, state, and federal level. Officials were either unavailable or unwilling to release any information about the killings. Local media reported that the male victim was 25 years old and the female 28, without citing any sources." Link to Full Article

Analysis: This latest incident has caused a global uproar, with even huge European news outlets like BBC wanting to find out more about the murdered social media users in Nuevo Laredo. The thing is, how do we really know who these people were, or what they did?

Essentially, every media outlet is basing their story on the content of the messages posted with the bodies - presumably from Los Zetas, by their signature "Z." That means that Los Zetas - the bloodthirsty criminals and killers that they are - are being taken at their word, that these two people posted in some social media outlet some sort of detailed information about TCO activity in the area. The problem is, the authorities aren't talking - probably because they don't know anything, and/or are afraid to ask any questions.

So the media and Twitter are going nuts, telling the world that freedom of the press and freedom of speech (which were already being severely hampered in Mexico by the narcos) are taking the biggest historical hit because of this incident, and no one really even knows what happened. Who were these two victims? What social media outlet (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, a blog...) did they use? What did they say, and about which TCO did they say it? Did they even do what Los Zetas say they did? Did they post anonymously somewhere, or were they foolish enough to identify themselves somehow? And if they were indeed anonymous social media users, how did Los Zetas identify them?

There are two things that could have happened here. If what Los Zetas say happened is true, then this is one of the bigger salvos the TCO has launched against "civilians." But perhaps even that needs to be caveated. Were the victims members of a rival TCO and posting information that would hurt Zetas operations? Or were they innocents, warning others to get away from a potentially violent area due to Zetas activity?

The other scenario is that these two victims are rivals, fall guys, or random people Los Zetas killed and wanted to use to make threats and spread fear. Obviously, this incident has had that effect and more. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter who these people were (regarding TCO affiliation) or what they did or didn't do. Los Zetas are being taken at their word, and everyone is assuming the two victims did what Los Zetas are accusing them of. As a result, many social media users in Mexico are freaking out, and lots of people who provide useful information about drug war activity have probably just been silenced.

This is another one of those terrorist tactics Los Zetas have chosen to engage in. It doesn't matter whether or not you carry out what you threaten to do; the threat is often enough to persuade enough people to modify their behavior to suit your needs. Also, there's the well-worn adage that perception is reality. Whether or not these victims did what Los Zetas say they did, people are believing the message Los Zetas are putting out there. It's a perfect example of a successful psychological operation, and we'll have to chalk one up in the L column for the Mexican authorities - and a good number of media outlets.

"Over the last year-and-a-half, the Mexican government arrested and killed more top Mexican drug lords than it has in at least the last decade. For an administration that is constantly under fire for a drug war strategy that has failed to significantly reduce violence along the US-Mexico border and beyond, these high-profile arrests are hard-won victories against transnational criminal organizations (TCOs). But are they really?"

September 13, 2011

In my latest podcast, I had a greatly informative and eye-opening conversation with Josh Schimberg, the Executive Director of Texas NORML (which stands for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), about the legalization of marijuana. We talked about what Texas NORML advocates, how marijuana compares to tobacco and alcohol, and the general attitude in America about marijuana use.

More importantly, we talked about how legalizing marijuana would potentially impact Mexico's drug war - the violence across the country, and the huge drug profits being raked in by the Mexican TCOs who produce it, smuggle it, and sell it in the US. The most surprising/shocking thing I learned? Members of NORML are not only aware of the impact illegal marijuana use has on the drug war - they make a conscious effort to not contribute to the bloodshed by "buying American" and supporting local growers.

This is a can't-miss podcast for those of you who want to learn more about the legalization debate, find out if marijuana really is or isn't that bad for you, how it stacks up to cigarettes and beer, and if you want to hear some (good) surprises along the way.

September 06, 2011

"Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) are no strangers to cyberspace. For the last few years, they’ve been posting videos of their kidnap victims and rivals being tortured on YouTube. They push propaganda on Facebook and MySpace. They’ve even learned how to communicate with each other through Twitter to evade the watchful eyes of Mexican authorities. But now they’re taking their presence on the Internet to new levels: fraud, piracy and information theft, hacking and sabotage. This only adds to their electronic expansion of existing crimes, like extortion, intimidation and money laundering. The question is, are they targeting American individuals or businesses, and what impact are they having on US cybersecurity?"

September 03, 2011

A couple of weeks ago, I contacted a colleague of mine who's a producer in Los Angeles. She has some contacts at the Discovery Channel, and my initial idea while talking to her was to ask for help with pitching the TV rights to my book to some TV channels. What ended up happening was that she put me in touch with the executive producer of "Brad Meltzer's Decoded" because she knew they were working on something that might involve Mexican cartels. Before I knew it, I was being flown out of town by The History Channel for a whirlwind trip to be filmed for an upcoming episode!

I arrived on site around 1pm. I honestly had no idea what to expect because I'd never seen a TV show being filmed, although I'd seen several episodes of "Decoded" and knew how the scene would probably go. After a few minutes, the crew arrived and started unloading all the gear. I couldn't believe how much equipment and how many people it takes to film what ends up being a five-minute conversation on TV! While the gear was being brought in, I met Buddy Levy, one of the "Decoders," i.e. my interviewer. I liked him right away; he was very nice, genuine, and originally from New Orleans!

We then moved to the very warm room where the scene would be filmed. It took about an hour to set everything up. During this time, I chatted at length with the producer about the subject of organized crime in Mexico. This helped him form the questions that Buddy and Christine McKinley (she goes by her last name), the other Decoder, would ask me during our conversation on film.

After the scene was set, McKinley came in, and I also really liked her right away! Both she and Buddy were so friendly, laid back, and very easy to talk to. They were also genuinely interested in the subject of the drug war, and just loved learning new things in general - the biggest reason why my husband and I love watching the show so much! The crew then spent the next hour just setting up the shot - getting the lighting right, the camera angles right, switching up where we were sitting, etc. There was a lot of work getting done before they even started rolling any film! And we were all sweating pretty profusely; it was a hot day, and there wasn't much A/C going on in that room.

We finally started to film. McKinley and Buddy came into the room, shook my hand and sat down, and they would start asking me questions about Mexican mobsters. They filmed the same questions multiple times to make sure we talked about all the issues relevant to the subject they were trying to decode - in this case, organized crime. We did this for about an hour, then broke for "lunch" at 4pm. I sat next to Buddy and McKinley and some crew members, which was super cool because we got to know each other a bit better, and talk about different things. I loved being able to ask about their experiences with the show, how they fell into the work, where they were from, etc.

After lunch, we really put our noses to the grindstone. They filmed a few parts many more times, again to make sure we covered the relevant topics. A funny thing: My hair, which started out looking great at 1pm (thanks to my awesome stylist at Beauty Brands in Shiloh), was really starting to frizz out by 5pm in all that heat and humidity (!!!). The director kept coming over to smooth it out to make sure it looked as much like it did in the first few takes, which I imagine was a challenge! It was just funny to see this guy making sure my hair was "just so." They really pay attention to the little details! Finally they got everything they wanted, and we "wrapped" around 7pm.

There were several things I was particularly proud of. First, the producer said he was extremely happy with the interview, and that he got exactly what he wanted. It was my job to do that for him, and I'm glad I was able to do that. Second, he said they normally have to work with their experts to make sure they know what to do, what to expect, and I guess some they've worked with have been more difficult than others. Everyone said they wished all their experts could be like me, and that made me feel amazing! Third, my experience in front of the cameras for the news paid off; he loved what I was wearing (solid bright color), and said I looked great on camera. That made me feel REALLY amazing!

Overall, it was a truly incredible experience. But let me tell you, it was work, and all I was doing was sitting on a stool and talking! The crew was on their feet most of the time - especially the camera guys, who are holding heavy equipment while standing for hours - and it was really hot in that room. Everyone was so nice to me, making sure I had water, a comfortable place to sit, etc. I spoke with pretty much everyone there, and met some really interesting people - including a crew member from Ecuador! It was cool speaking in Spanish with him and learning about his roots there. Talking with Buddy and McKinley is definitely at the top of my "Cool Things I've Done in My Life" list! They're funny, smart, and very interesting people. McKinley and I are already FB friends, so fortunately I'll be keeping in touch with them.

The new season of "Brad Meltzer's Decoded" starts on October 4th on The History Channel. Check it out because it's a really neat show! The episode I'm in will air later in the season, either in December or January. I will be sure to let you all know when it's going to air so you can tune in. As always, thanks for your unending support in my professional endeavors!

September 01, 2011

"One of the worst mass killings in Mexico’s drug war history occurred on August 25 in the violence-plagued city of Monterrey. Around 3:00 PM, a dozen men in four cars pulled up in front of the Casino Royale casino lugging several gas cans with them. In less than three minutes, they doused the small casino with gasoline and set the building on fire, killing 52 people in the ensuing blaze. Some witnesses said the attackers - allegedly members of the brutal Los Zetas transnational criminal organization (TCO) - yelled at casino patrons to get out of the building. Sadly, though, most were unable to do so. Instead of heading for the casino’s exits, most patrons fled deeper into the casino and into bathrooms, where they died of smoke inhalation. Conflicting reports claimed the emergency exits were blocked. However, one report by CNN said several vetted witnesses heard grenades exploding in the casino and saw victims - including pregnant women - intentionally being gunned down by the attackers. One woman who escaped the fire told CNN one of the attackers told the patrons, “we’re going to kill all of you.” In the wake of the tragedy, Mexican President Felipe Calderón wasted no time publicly condemning the attack. But what especially perked the ears of many of the nation’s drug war observers - and likely not just a few members of the US government - was the wording he used. Calderón called the attack an “aberrant act of terror and barbarity.” His National Security spokesman, Alejandro Poiré, bluntly stated that “an act of terrorism has been committed.” But was the Casino Royale attack a true “act of terror”? If the Mexican government believes TCOs are committing acts of terrorism, what does that imply for its drug war strategy - and that of the US government?"